where where time stands still and some
people call that being in the zone or
being in a state of flow now you might
get that from playing music where you
get we might write more and more play
more and more complex pieces of music to
get more and more into that state where
you might get into that state as an
artist’s a painting canvas after canvas
to get deeper and deeper into that state
now for me I find that place through
nature through being out in the outdoors
and over time I found that the deeper
and deeper I could go into these wild
places that we have on the planet the
more connected I I would feel and the
more in that state in that state of
presence I’ve come to call that feeling
the connection now that’s what I want to
talk about here this afternoon I want to
share a story with you about the first
time I felt this feeling of connection I
was 18 years old living back in
Australia and I was taken out as part of
my job to do a course that’s run by a
group called outward-bound I’m not sure
if you’re familiar with outward but what
they do is take young people out into
the mountains or into the wilderness to
take them outside of their comfort zone
for personal growth so I was taken on
this course and I’m embarrassed to have
to say have to say this this afternoon
but the first day of that trip almost
broke me in in every way we set out and
we started out we were told that we had
to march straight up the side of this
mountain called Mount bogan and it’s not
super high but it’s quite steep and I
wasn’t in good enough shape and I barely
made it
to the top I mean it almost broke me
physically spiritually emotionally I
just about crawled to the top and I felt
horrible for the next couple of days and
then about three days after that we did
this thing that’s called the solo and
what the solo is is each of us was sent
out in a different direction to spend
the night on our own and remember we’re
out on top of a mountain so it’s kind of
a it’s a pretty out-there
thing now the thing is we were sent out
with only a water bottle empty water
bottle a box of matches and a small bag
of flour and we were told don’t come
back till the morning and so out I went
I found water I made a fire and I
remember thinking wow this is really
easy and so I was sitting in front of
the fire and then I fell asleep and I
woke up half an hour later freezing so
that okay I kept the fire going all
night and then here’s what happened at
one point I was lying back looking up at
the billions and billions of stars and I
had this feeling they felt like being
electrocuted and this this calm came
came over me and for the first time in
my life I felt this peace like I was so
so small but part of something huge and
that’s the feeling that I came to call
the connection I spent the next 14 years
chasing that feeling I chased it all
over the planet
eventually I go back to Australia and I
tried to settle back into normal life I
didn’t last very long I eventually had
this feeling of feeling disconnected
again like something was missing inside
and I knew that I had to go put on a
backpacking and go somewhere I’d heard
about a mountain called Hinchinbrook
sorry about an island called
hinchinbrook island off the coast of
North Queensland where the Great Barrier
Reef is and it’s known as a wild place
they limit the number of people that can
go there at any one time so I thought
perfect so I caught the boat across my
plan was to spend five days hiking down
the length of
Island and then a second boat would pick
me up on the first night on the island I
met a guy on the beach a Dutch guy but
the name of get Bencoolen
and yet told me that what he wanted to
do was climb to the top of the island’s
tallest peak mount bowen and as soon as
he said that i thought that’s a
no-brainer let’s do it
so first light the next morning we set
off to climb this mountain we climbed
all day at the end of the day we made
camp we had just cooked dinner yet had
just got inside his sleeping bag I was
just about to get into my sleeping bag
when I realized we’ll hang on a minute
before I do that I need to use the
bathroom now there’s no bathrooms on the
side of a mountain obviously but you
what you really need to do is you need
to get away from the creek right because
we’re going up the mountain following
this Creek that’s our water supply so
you need to get away from it and so the
easiest way for me to do that
I thought was to cross over where there
was a rock wall and then I would climb
up and over the rock wall and then that
would be good I’d be far enough away so
I made my way across and I found a crack
in the rock wall and at the time I
thought well that’s perfect I’ll use
that crack to climb up and out so I got
my hands in that crack got my right foot
up against the wall got my left hand up
a little bit higher and I pulled up to
start climbing and as I pulled up I
heard this almighty crack and the world
underneath me gave way the next thing I
knew I just got slammed back down into
the creek bed had no idea what had
happened all I knew was it straightaway
I was in a world of pain never felt
anything like it I screamed out get came
running over to see me pinned from the
hips down underneath the refrigerator
sized piece of rock a one-ton slab of
rock and things got pretty crazy at that
point he jumped in beside me were both
pushing it this thing for the next two
hours we tried everything to lift up
this rock and nothing nothing was
happening we couldn’t move it so we made
a decision that the next morning he
would hike out and organize a rescue be
the only way to get me out so I spent
the longest night of my life waiting for
the Sun to come up and then in the
morning I watched get pack up his things
we hugged each other good boy
I watched him turn around and walk back
down off that mountain and I tell you
I’ve never felt so alone was watching
him walk away because I knew that I was
going to be there for at least another a
whole day so he walked away and I
settled in to do the only thing that I
could do was wait wait and think a lot
to think about when you’re trapped like
that it wasn’t lost on me that I’d spent
my whole life chasing these experiences
of being out in nature out in a wild
place and now here I was looking like I
would probably die in the mountains and
I remember thinking are you happy now is
this what you’ve been looking for is
this connected enough for you yeah it
didn’t feel very good I ended up
spending the best part of two days
trapped underneath that rock until the
venture I got to here what is still
today my favorite sound we went out in
the helicopter and winched down on the
wire cable with our equipment and they
found this fellow who
and in trouble we’re on scene about two
and a half hours most of that time spent
resuscitating him and getting the
boulder off i thought we almost lost him
twice
particularly when we removed the boulder
but he seemed to come back each time
which attests to its good physical
condition and I think once he realized
we were there he roused and really he
put forth a heroic effort to get himself
out of there with our help
so they got me to hospital and I had a
surgeon come and explained to me that my
legs had been so badly damaged that they
would have to amputate them that night
and I remember just thinking whatever do
whatever you need to do and I cried
myself to sleep and woke up the next
afternoon into a whole new world into a
completely new reality I woke up like
this
and so began my new life for the next 10
days always in intensive care not
knowing whether I would live or die and
then eventually I got out into the
regular hospital and it was then that I
started to wonder well what kind of life
can something like this somebody that
loves being in the outdoors everywhere I
turned it seemed like there was a new
obstacle I had to learn how to use a
wheelchair I learned how to swim I had
to learn really how to do everything
again drive a car just everything
everywhere I turned it seemed like there
was something new to learn but what I
realized is that each time that I
overcame an obstacle it made me stronger
for the next one and so eventually I got
to the point where I started even
looking for obstacles if there wasn’t an
obstacle there I went looking for one
and eventually while on a hike I started
hiking in the wheelchair I got the
mountain bike wheels and I would go out
in and hike and I was on a hike one day
and an image came to my mind a picture
of a mountain in Tasmania called Cradle
Mountain now I think this picture came
to mind because I had climbed Cradle
Mountain twice before and this image
came with a question I wonder if a guy
with no legs could pop my mountain is
that even possible
and I knew there was really only one way
to find out and so I started training I
got some friends and family
together and we all went down to the
island of Tasmania and we set out on
this journey to see whether it was
possible for somebody with no legs to do
something like this and you could see we
started out from the parking light here
you can see the mountains off in the
distance and started heading towards the
mountain and then once we got to the
base I ditched the wheelchair and took
off on my backside up the mountain
because one of the things that I
realized while I was in in rehab was
that the wheelchair for me is a tool I’m
not stuck in it and when the tool
doesn’t suit me anymore I can leave it
behind so I left it behind and started
navigating all of these obstacles on the
way up the side of Cradle Mountain and
so it’s basically just about going up
and up and up over all the rocks that
are in the way until eventually two and
a half days after leaving the parking
lot I got to sit on top of Cradle
Mountain and I’ll tell you that there’s
a couple of things about this image one
is that my car is way way in the
distance there and so for a guy that now
uses a wheelchair to be so far away from
the parking lot was kind of a big deal
but another thing about this image is
that the reason that I’ve got those
sunglasses on is I just got overwhelmed
with emotion and I mean overwhelmed
everything came back at me that the
accident the losing both legs the two
days under the rock the months and
months of rehab everything just was like
it just slammed me and so as a guy I
can’t be seen showing too much emotion
especially as an Australian guy
I think it’s illegal for a man to cry in
Australia so I had to keep those
sunglasses on but the reason that it hit
me so hard was that this photo was taken
not even a year after the accident it’s
taken ten months after losing both legs
and so what that says to me is what is
that
say about human potential about what
we’re all capable of when we’ve pushed
up against the wall like that it’s
pretty amazing what we can what we can
pull off and so and I think probably the
bigger reason that I got so overwhelmed
in in this moment was that it’s I just
got the biggest feeling of connection
that I’d ever had I’d reclaimed that
part of my life and so from there 12
months later I did a climb of probably
one of the wildest mountains in in
Australia that you can climb Federation
Peak you know in a four-week journey and
then four years after that set out on a
climb of Africa’s tallest peak Mount
Kilimanjaro again this time in a
three-week journey epic epic trip I
actually did the climb with a young guy
from Tanzania that was born without arms
but here’s the thing after doing these
climbs something really interesting
happened I realized that it’s not really
about climbing mountains that this
journey that I’m on is really about
creating because I had created a new
life for myself right out of a
devastating situation I got to create
something new to the point that if I had
the chance to go back now and not be
here like this I wouldn’t go back I’ve
learned too much from this experience
and become so much stronger that I
wouldn’t go back so for me the question
really is I I believe that we’re all
here to create something it’s why we’re
on this planet I think the days of just
taking things in and consuming it over
now it’s time that we turn it around and
we transmit and that we put our creation
out there into the world and I think if
we’re going to tap into that creative
power the best way to do that is to
spend time in those places where we find
that connection where we’re in the zone
we were in that state of flow whatever
that is for you it could be being out in
the outdoors it could be music it could
be art it could be knitting you know we
do whatever it is for you your job is to
spend time in
place so that you can tap into that
power to create so my closing thought
for you guys is if a guy like me can go
from here to here then what does that
mean for you what is it that you’re here
to create and here’s the heads up
because the clock’s ticking as soon as
you figured that out you’ve got to get
on it and make it happen because the
world needs whatever it is that you’ve
got to put out there thank you [Applause]